Josh Mandel confused on the meaning of ‘hypocrisy’

Josh Mandel really took the hammer to common sense yesterday. In the morning his office unveiled a new tool on the Treasurer’s website that allows viewers to search every public employee in the state by name and see how much they made each year working for the state. With the help of the ultra-conservative think tank The Buckeye Institute, Mandel’s office made public the salaries of teachers, police officers, fire fighters, nurses, and even elected officials available for everyone to see. Except for one small group of people – campaign staff from Mandel’s 2010 campaign that had been given jobs in his administration.

However, information on government employees as political control shifts, including two of Mandel’s own political operatives, can be spotty. Figures for Scott Guthrie and Joel Riter were among about 70 treasury employees whose salary data at first wasn’t listed on the site. Both worked on Mandel’s 2010 Republican campaign for treasurer, then were hired at his state office.

…State personnel records for Guthrie, who served as finance director for Mandel’s 2010 campaign, indicate that he was paid a rate equal to a little over $100,000 a year in his state job. Because he left before the year was out, however, the search engine lists his annual salary as $14,021, the amount he was paid for his short stint in state service. State records show a year of Riter’s salary would have totaled about $62,000; the site lists his salary as about $30,000.

Whoops.

I don’t know what I’m more surprised about, the fact that Mandel’s political cronies were left off the list until someone pointed it out to him or that he hired his own campaign finance director at a rate of over $100,000 a year. Luckily for the state though, it took Josh Mandel about two days into his term to realize he wanted to run for U.S. Senate so he needed those advisors of his out of the Treasurer’s office and back onto his campaign.

Besides this being a backhanded attack at public employees it is clear that Josh Mandel does not understand what the word ‘hypocrisy’ means. While at the same time he unveils this new tool disclosing the salaries of hundreds of thousands of public employees he himself is over 100 days late in filing his financial disclosure forms that all candidates for a U.S Senate seat are required to file.

Which got me thinking – I wonder if anyone mentioned to Mandel that he could now use this new database to help him fill out his disclosure forms. He can search for himself and see what he made each year while receiving a salary from the State of Ohio. Unless, or course, that isn’t all he made those years. In which case, I suggest he asks the Buckeye Institute to create a tool that helps him search his own finances to see how much he made last year.

This little misstep is the latest in a long line of missteps though. Besides failing to file his financial disclosure forms, he recently has come under scrutiny for receiving $100,000 in questionable campaign contributions, failing to disclose the fact that he was using a photo on his campaign website attributed to The Dispatch, and coming under fire for using his state campaign account to fund campaign activity for his U.S. Senate campaign. If true, would be a violation of federal election law.

Before Josh Mandel wants to lecture anyone on the importance of transparency when it comes to the discussion of public employee benefits, I suggest he first takes a look in the mirror to see what he needs to do to be more transparent.

If the Buckeye Institute was really interested in providing the “truth” about public employee salaries and their incredulous numbers on retirement benefits they would do follow up data on what they “reported” as retirement benefits on their site, and what a retired person is ACTUALLY making in pension benefits.

Fotogirlcb2002

well first you have to have a name to enter in to find out what one makes.
yes there are places to go to find the names but how many folks will actually bother…………
wow,, Shannon Jones will make $85,269 — wonder how many will say shes overpaid?
pretty good for some one who admitted she works like 3 days a week most weeks.

Fotogirlcb2002

well first you have to have a name to enter in to find out what one makes.
yes there are places to go to find the names but how many folks will actually bother…………
wow,, Shannon Jones will make $85,269 — wonder how many will say shes overpaid?
pretty good for some one who admitted she works like 3 days a week most weeks.

Anonymous

Is anyone else having problems using this confusing and non-transparent “tool”? I can’t seem to get results for any of Kasich’s top-level people. It either says that there are “zero” results or it says it’s busy. Not putting the salaries in the form of an annual amount sounds like an attempt to confuse as well.

Also, does it strike anyone else that this seems like a partisan effort to gin up resentment and envy against public workers (without any context about who they are, what they do, and why they earn these salaries) in order to help defeat the repeal of SB 5? Because it looks like that to me.

The Buckeye Institute wouldn’t know the truth if it hit them in the face. This is a well-orchestrated attempt to use their political allies and the media to get the stupid people spun up to vote for SB5.

And they bitch about teachers only working 9 months of the year. Lets see….3 x52=156 days – the weeks she takes as a vacation…..while a teacher who’s responsibilities are more, will work over 180 days this year. Yet few if any teachers in the whole of Ohio will make 82+ a year. And isn’t she a newbe =a first year employe in her area?

Fotogirlcb2002

thats up from about $68,000 — see she was appointed at first — then elected

Anonymous

That is EXACTLY it my friend, the average TEA party aficionado will use this site as absolute proof that salaries are too high.

Yet not a single column on this joke of a search engine shows how much of that time is due to working overtime, 12/16 even 18 hour days for some cops (just as an example of course) , mandatory call ins to work holidays and other special events, getting paid extra for working holidays, getting paid to come in to court on your one miserable day off…..you get the picture.It’s nothing but a tool for the weak minded to prove a point.

Anonymous

Thank goodness for Plunderbund. I wouldn’t even know half the dirt on Ohio’s new Republicans if it weren’t for you guys. Even with a lefty local newspaper, they barely scratch the surface.

There’s a serious problem in this site, the fact that it’s dead wrong. I search my last name, and my father appears on the list, and it seems as though he’s making money still from the school district in which he taught. The only thing is, he retired in 2005, so he’s being paid by STRS, not the district, and if I understand correctly that’s HIS MONEY that he paid to the pension system (and the district matched–past tense). That’s terrible, terrible misinformation, not to mention that it’s one thing to list EMPLOYEES and another thing to list RETIREES.

And, Matt Mayer’s info is notoriously absent from that site, which is strange because he worked for OSU within the past 6 years. Both of my parents records show up back to 2004 as teacher’s in podunk NW Ohio, but his don’t?

Anonymous

Shannon Jones is WAY overpaid — and I want her drug tested NOW. BTW Ohio legislators are among the highest paid in the country, well into the top 10.

Anonymous

You have a local leftie paper? I can only dream of that. The Cleveland Plainly Republican (Plain Dealer) is useless.

Anonymous

Its the Akron Beacon Journal, but they have become complete wimps, a mouthpiece for the mayor, who secretly loves stuff like SB5

This is further proof that yet another R is not fiscally responsible. They love spending money and borrowing money. They just lie about it.

BGDar

I just looked myself up in Mandel’s database and was really surprised to learn that I’ve been paid $60,000 plus each of the last four years. Quite a shock considering I retired from teaching over 4 years ago. Has anyone clued the media in to this glaring error in the Treasurer’s data base? And what does that say about the compentence of Mandel and his staff to handle the accounting reaponsibilities of the Ohio State Tresurers office!!!!!???

Joshmandel

I’ve searched Joshy’s salary multiple times. Guess what. It has changed twice so far. This kid is a punk.